Chertoff: Turf Wars Still Hamper Emergency Communications

By |May 9, 2006

Unless police, firefighters and other emergency responders end turf wars and talk to each other during disasters, billions of dollars spent on high-tech communication systems will go to waste, says Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said, the Associated Press reports. Chertoff said the value of the technology provided through federal grants has been diminished by local and state disagreements over control of the equipment. Chertoff said his department has provided $2.1 billion over three years to buy the equipment and train emergency responders to use it. “I’ve actually seen this stuff work,” he told a communications conference.

Police and fire officials said those funds only scratch the surface of what’s needed nationwide. “The price tag to get them all to interoperability – down at the line level where a cop can talk to EMS directly – is going to be vastly more expensive,” said Joseph G. Estey, police chief in Hartford, Vt., and past president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

The legislation marks a major change for Republicans, who long hve embraced a law-and-order rallying cry. Now many GOP senators argue for rehabilitating more offenders rather than long-time incarceration.

An Arizona doctor argues that the government should have learned from previous federal anti-drug strategies that blanket prohibition doesn’t work. He calls for scrapping attempts to curtail opioids and replacing it with “harm reduction” policies.

Expensive medications for inmates can lead to substandard care and delays in treatment, and that may have lasting—even deadly—consequences for incarcerated individuals, writes a prison health care advocate.

Murder rates in the nation’s 30 largest cities are projected to fall by nearly 6 percent this year according to the latest data, undercutting claims that the nation is experiencing a “crime wave,” says the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.

School safety commission proposes ending a federal guideline telling schools not to punish minorities at higher rates. The panel largely sidestepped issues relating to guns, although it favors arming some school personnel.